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Booktitle
MISSION COMPLETE
ISBN: 1-4137-4913-5
A FICTION NOVEL THAT COULD BE A TRUE STORY
Synopsis
The world's most sophisticated nuclear attack submarine, the USS JACKFISH
(SSN-945) returned to its homeport, Groton, Connecticut ten days before Christmas.
On the evening of twenty December, Commander Bruce Stewart, the Commanding Officer of JACKFISH, meets in a highly classified conference with high level military and civilain persons. At this meeting, it was revealed that an ultimatum was delivered to the President of the United States from a Soviet-Cuban terrorist group demanding a ransom of billions of dollars and the disarament of the United States strategic nuclear weapons arsenal.
The ultimatum would be met or the terrorists would launch nuclear cruise missiles from the United States nuclear attack submarine TIGERFISH at exactly midnight Christmas Eve and annihilate the cities of Norfolk, Virginia, Washington, D.C., New York and Gronton, Connecticuit.
The TIGERFISH had been pirated while at anchor off Piraeus, Greece, the victim of an expertly developed and exceptionally well executed plan by an integrated Sovit-Cuban team. The submarine was still operated by its American crew in bondage, confined in movement by leg and arm chains with severe brutality and torturing under the guns of the Soviet and Cuban guards.
The options available to the President were to conduct a nuclear preemptive first strike, to honor the ultimatim, or to dispatch Commander Stewart and USS JACKFISH to seek out and sink the TIGERFISH.
The President gambles at his best option- Stewart and the JACKFISH.
Heavy seas and reduced visibility during the outbound leg of the voyage from Groton, Connecticut, coupled with the death of a ship's diver while unfouling lobster pot locator lines from the propeller shaft and an almost mission abort fire in the ship, reduce significantly the already limited time available to meet the deadline for killing the hunted.
The President had directed no one else in JACKFISH be provided any details of the mission. The Executive Officer's friction and resentment toward the Captain for not being provided details of the mission increase as the JACKFISH gets closer to its mission area and the torpedo shooting point was approached.
Weapons are launched under potentially conflict conditions between the JACKFISH Captain and Executive Officer.
The loud explosion and breaking up noises heard by the JACKFISH sonar operators in the direction of the TIGERFISH signify "MISSION COMPLETE".
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